Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
by Min Daae
Summary: He's John's son. That should be all that matters.  It isn't.  Set during IMTOD.


_Don't worry, Johnny-boy, _the Yellow Eyed Demon said. _I promise I'll let you watch. _

He was as good as his word.

~.~

They didn't spend a lot of time in hospitals. They were expensive, for one thing, and it was too easy to track. Too much of a chance that someone would smell fake insurance. But they were here now.

He remembered the crash, the screeching, grinding, tearing of metal, the force of impact. Remembered Sam staring straight ahead at the road with his jaw clenched putting Dean ahead of vengeance.

Sam was sitting next to the bed when John came around. "McGillicuddy," he said, simply. "That's our names. You're Elroy." He held himself stiffly, but a cursory glance revealed only cuts and scrapes and bruises, nothing major.

"Sam," he said, in a voice that came out sounding like gravel.

Sam turned his head to look at him, eyes dark and distant. "Dean's in a coma," he said simply. "They're not sure if he's going to come out of it." John stared at Sam, unable, for a moment, to absorb what he was hearing. His younger son stood up. "The doctor's going to want to talk to you," he said simply, and walked out. John watched him go, hair prickling on the back of his neck.

~.~

_So while we're like this, _the demon asked, _what do you want to know? I know you must have so many questions for me. _

(And John thrashed and struggled in his own mind and did nothing.)

_Do you want me to tell you that Sammy's all you think he is? And more, actually. He'll go so much farther than you can even imagine. _

(You son of a bitch they'll kill you my boys will kill you)

_Of course, it wouldn't have been possible without you. I recruited him, but you made your boy a soldier. My soldier. And what are you going to do about it, Johnny-boy?_

_~.~  
_

Dean looked small and broken and empty when they let him see him. Sam was already inside, both hands wrapped around Dean's and his head bowed. John could see his lips moving and wondered if Sam was talking to Dean or praying.

For years he'd suspected. For years he'd harbored doubts and fears, known that maybe killing Mary wasn't the primary target, that she'd been a casualty of a larger war. But never sure, never certain.

Sam's head lifted and he looked over his shoulder. His eyes found John's and narrowed, minutely. He glanced quickly away, back to Dean, but the anger was too obvious to hide. His angry, stubborn, younger son. _If you'd followed orders we wouldn't be here. _The words were right in the back of his throat, and John suspected he wouldn't be able to keep them quiet forever, not with the accusation every glance of Sam's threw at him.

Sam. The demon's chosen. His golden boy. (He'd felt the pride like his own every time the thing had looked at Sam.) _I recruited him, but you made him a warrior. _

If another hunter knew what he knew…

"You need to go back to your room now, Mr. McGillicuddy," said the nurse hovering over his shoulder, and he nodded without thinking about it, his head whirling. Dean was dying. He knew that. He'd felt it happening like it'd been his own fingers crushing and tearing and-

Dean was dying, and Sam was meant for something terrible. Sam who he'd tried so hard to keep safe and never done quite enough.

What was he supposed to do now?

John closed his eyes and wondered when he should have seen this coming. Because he should have. He should have known.

The part of him that was and always would be a soldier said that if Dean died, Sam probably wouldn't last long anyway. They'd always been too close. The father in him hated everything about that thought. Sam was his son. Mary's baby.

That was the only thing that mattered. Not whatever the demon had done to him. Not whatever its plans were.

The only thing.

(He had the beginnings of a thought. Nursed them. Carefully.)

~.~

_You probably should have killed him back when you could have done it, _the demon said conversationally. _Now you can't. Save the world or save your boy. Can't have both. Too late now. _

_You wonder if he knows? _It went on, keeping John's eyes closed, keeping him blind. _If he's just like a cuckoo in the nest, or more like a time bomb? Maybe your boy's been playing you all along, eh?_

(They have the Colt. They can end this, John reminded himself. They have to. My boys.)

What's your endgame? He thought, as hard as he could. What do you want, dammit?

_Well, _the demon said. _This is nice, to start. _

_~.~  
_

He should've known Sam would see what he was doing. That Bobby would, if Sam didn't. That Sam would never let anything go quietly, would dig his teeth in like a pit bull and never let go.

The betrayal in his son's eyes (you care more about revenge than your own son!) made something bitter twist and turn over in the pit of John's stomach. _Is he wrong? _A nasty corner of his mind asked, and he swept it away under his own (righteous) anger.

Sam was his son. Sam was a danger. Sam was his _son. _

John knew what he needed to do. Dean was running out of time too fast.

He looked at Sam, tense and taut with barely restrained fury. A firebrand. Part of a plan the demon had set in motion more than twenty years ago.

When Sam had left for Stanford, he'd still been a floppy-haired, starry-eyed boy. He wasn't that anymore.

John hardly even knew him now. He'd grown up so fast when John was looking away. What else would he grow into, without John to watch?

~.~

_You can't do anything, _the demon taunted as it crushed Dean against the wall and made him bleed, and made him writhe. _You can't do anything to save him, or yourself, or anyone. This is it, Johnny-boy. This is it._

And then Sam, and the gun, and for just a moment looking at those cold, hard eyes he hardly recognized as his son's, John felt a tiny frission of fear and saw it. Sam the warrior. Sam the weapon. Sam who could end it all right now.

And didn't.

John had never truly hated his youngest son before as he did as the demon ripped itself out of him, laughing, and slipped through the cracks.

~.~

"Dean's okay," Sam said. He looked exhausted, but that didn't mask the accusation lingering in his eyes. "The doctors don't get it."

Sam was his boy. His. Not the demon's. It couldn't have him, this young man just growing into himself. (It already does, a voice that sounded a lot like the demon murmured. You're too late.)

_Explain yourself, _Sam's eyes said. "Are you going to go see him?" he said out loud, like a challenge.

"I'll be right there."

Someone had to know. Someone had to know what he knew, and the only person he could tell was Dean. And Dean would understand. He had to.


End file.
